


Full Wolf Moon

by smalltrolven



Category: Supernatural
Genre: First Time, Kid Fic, M/M, Werewolves, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 12:56:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6754804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smalltrolven/pseuds/smalltrolven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchester brothers have been separated since Sam was sixteen. John would never disclose to Sam the reason why Dean left or where he was. Years pass, and when Sam and his daughter come back to live with Bobby, they stumble upon a werewolf who has familiar green eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Full Wolf Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bluefire986](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluefire986/gifts).



> Not my characters, only my story. Written for the 2016 wincest-reversebang.  
> Thank you so very much to the very talented artist, bluefire986 who was so fabulous to work with. _Fridolf_ means ‘peaceful wolf.’ Thank you for the wonderful beta job, amypond45 you are the best! 
> 
> Make sure to check out the [Art Masterpost on LJ right here](http://bluefire986.livejournal.com/6705.html)  
> or [ here on AO3.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6755725)

_ _

_Knock knock knock._ A giggle? _Knock knock knock._

Bobby grumbles into his whisky glass at the interruption and then sets it down on the crowded desktop among all his research papers. He peers out the spy hole and sees that it’s Sam, holding a very young girl in his arms.

The door is open and Sam still hasn’t crossed the threshold. Bobby stares at him, taking in the changes since he’d last set eyes on his adopted son. It hasn’t been that long, he’d seen him a little more than two years ago at Sam’s graduation from Stanford. But Sam looks like an entirely different person, drawn and terribly thin. Sam seems to be right back in that sadness that had engulfed him after Dean had left.

“Where’s Jess?” Bobby finally asks, specifically not asking about the little girl grinning at him from her perch in Sam’s arms.

Sam’s face crumples at the mention of his wife’s name, tears forming in his eyes. Bobby notices how he holds onto the girl a little tighter.

“Ow, Daddy,” the girl protests.

“So who’s this lovely young lady?” Bobby asks, looking the girl over with a welcoming smile. She definitely has Jess’ curly blond hair, and a pair of intense green eyes that remind him of another person missing from this conversation and family.

“This is Tracy. Our daughter,” Sam manages to say before letting loose a few tears.

“Get in here, boy. C’mon in,” Bobby says, folding Sam into his arms, Tracy turning to rub her cheek against his.  “Hi Tracy, I’m Bobby.”

“Bob-bee?” she asks.

“Yeah, baby, that’s your grandpa Bobby,” Sam says, wiping at his wet face with the back of one hand.

Tracy pats Bobby’s cheek with one pudgy toddler hand. “Nice Bob-bee.”

“Yeah, he’s nice,” Sam says, leaning heavily on Bobby. So obviously relieved to see the man who had been more of a father than his own ever had.

“We’ve got some catchin’ up to do, boy. Make yourselves at home. You know where everything is, hasn’t changed a lick since you were last here,” Bobby said, letting go of Sam once he was sure he could stand on his own.

Sam nods towards the stairs. “I’m going to put her down for a nap. Is my old room still…”

“Yeah, Sam, it’s still your room, haven’t moved a thing. Linens might not be the cleanest, but should be okay,” Bobby says with half of a smile. He has always hoped that Sam would come back, someday, but not like this. Sad and broken and worn down to nothing.

Sam disappears with his daughter up the stairs, Bobby’s eyes following Tracy’s as she peers at him over Sam’s shoulder. “Bye-bye, Bob-bee.”

Bobby returns her little wave with one of his own. Once they’re gone he sets about making Sam some of the tea that has always calmed him down and a few sandwiches to go with it. He isn’t hungry, but Sam sure looks like he needs something.

When Sam returns, he plops down on the couch and puts his head in his hands, letting out a long, heavy sigh. He finally looks up at Bobby, across in his favorite chair. “It’s so damn good to see you, Bobby.”

“Me too, Sam. Drink up and tell me what’s going on.”

Sam makes his usual long, drawn-out affair of fixing his tea, eats one sandwich and half of another before beginning to speak. “So, after you were out for my graduation, we found out Jess was pregnant. She had Tracy about five months later, and I’m sorry, god, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. But the way we left it at graduation, I wasn’t sure you would want to know.”

“Damn it, boy! That wasn’t what I meant, and if you weren’t so pig-head stubborn like your father was, you’d-a known it,” Bobby finishes his rant and sits back in his chair, watching to see if Sam understood him.

“I…uh, I do know. And like I said, I’m sorry, Bobby. You should have been my first phone call to let you know. I mean, Tracy’s pretty much your grand-daughter.”

“So where’s Jess then?”

Sam sighs, heavy with pain and sadness. “She’s dead. There was a fire, six months after Tracy was born. And I tried…I tried to keep up with law school for a semester, but I just couldn’t. Not after everything…it all reminded me of her. So I left school, and we’ve been on the road for a while, went up the West coast, hung out in the Canadian Rockies. And now we’re here.”

“Well, I’m glad that you are. That both of you are. And I’m sorry, Sam, so sorry about Jess. I know you loved her.”

“Yeah, but you warned me didn’t you? And you were right. I never should have tried to have a normal life. And she died because…all because of me.”

“But you said it was a fire, Sam.”

“It was a fire just like how my mother died, Bobby. On the ceiling,”

“Was she in Tracy’s nursery, six months to the day after Tracy was born?”

“Yeah, how could you possibly know that?” Sam asks.

“That’s what your dad said happened,” Bobby answers, “that’s how we figured out it was a demon.”

“I never knew…uh…the details. He and Dean never said much about it. So does this mean the demon is back?”

“Or never left, who knows with those damn things. More unpredictable than people if you ask me.”

“I shouldn’t have come here, now you’ll be in danger too.”

“No, Sam. You’re not goin’ anywhere, that’s what family is supposed to do. Stick together, protect each other. We’ll figure this out. Better to have both of us to fight this thing if it does come back.”

“I wish Dean was here.”

“Me too, boy, me too,” Bobby says, taking his hat off his head and turning it in his hands.

“He ever contact you?” Sam asks.

Bobby looks away and hopes Sam won’t notice his evasion. “No, he never has.”

They are interrupted by a cry from upstairs. Sam jumps up to head upstairs and quickly brings Tracy back with him. He cuddles her close on the couch until she settles down. “She’s a little fussy in the afternoons sometimes.”

“I’m not a fussy, Daddy. I’m a hungry,” Tracy says.

Bobby laughs and hands her the plate of sandwiches. She takes one in her small hands and looks at Bobby with big eyes. “Fank you.”

“You’re welcome, Tracy,” Bobby says with a smile that he knows probably looks pretty damn foolish. But hell, this girl is adorable. He’s already wrapped around her little finger and he’s only known her a few minutes.

“I haven’t been here since I was what, eighteen? Place looks exactly the same. You still hunting?” Sam asks.

“Yeah, sometimes when Rufus needs a backup. Mostly I work the phones, do research for people.”

“Daddy, wanna go outside,” Tracy said, squirming in Sam’s lap. She put the bread crusts on the sandwich plate and stood up.

“Okay, baby, let me get your jacket, we’ll go for a walk. I’ll show you where I used to hang out in the woods.”

“I’ll make us some dinner while you’re gone. Don’t be too long, it’s already pretty late,” Bobby says, grinning at the two of them leaving out the back kitchen door.

As he walks out of the back of the salvage yard along the familiar trail, Sam can’t help reminiscing about all the years he’d spent here out here as a teenager. Bobby had finished raising him through those tough and lonely teenage years. He’d ended up here because John and Sam hadn’t gotten along well after Dean was gone. Mostly because John would never tell Sam where his brother went or why.

 _Dean. It always came back to Dean_ , Sam thinks to himself for the thousandth time. Going away to California for college, as far away from hunting and the memories of his broken family as he could manage, hoping to somehow find an escape. He had tried to tell himself that Jess was his way out. She would never have to know any of it. But under it all was that giant chasm of missing his brother. The abruptness of their separation wasn’t something he’d ever been able to get over. All Sam knew was that it happened a few days after he’d finally gotten up the nerve to kiss his beautiful older brother. It has always seemed most likely to him that Dean had run away from his messed-up, perverted little brother. His own father had never bothered to forgive Sam, he was just a burden that hindered his obsessive hunting. So it had been far better for Sam to live at Bobby’s.

At least there are still the familiar woods, they haven’t changed. The path they are walking along is pretty well beaten-down. He wonders if Bobby walks out here now, because he never had before. He holds Tracy’s hand as she toddles along, stopping to look at the late-fall wildflowers growing in the forest scrub, picking up random rocks and handing them to him. His pockets are always weighed down after a walk with his daughter. He notices that it’s either later than he thought, or maybe he’s lost track of how long they’ve been walking. The forest gets thicker and darker until they come out into a clearing, where a giant full-moon is just above the trees throwing everything into sharp relief. Sam turns them around to go back the way they came and is shocked to see a gigantic wolf standing at the edge of the clearing.

It’s blocking the pathway back to Bobby’s. Has it been following them? Sam readies himself to fight to the death to protect his little girl as the wolf slowly pads towards them. It’s acting more like a trained dog and lowers itself down on its belly in front of them. Holding Tracy close, Sam extends one hand towards the wolf. He scents Sam’s hand and then gently licks at it. The wolf’s tongue is rough and before Sam knows it, Tracy is copying him and the wolf licks Tracy’s outstretched hand just as gently.

Sam feels like time had stopped and he isn’t aware of anything but this beautiful creature in front of them. It rubs its head against Sam’s knees several times, and then even allows Tracy to pet his head. It rumbles something that sounds appreciative of the contact.  Tracy leans forward out of Sam’s hold and buries her little face in his deep ruff. The wolf opens its huge jaws and its long pink tongue slowly licks the side of her face. Tracy giggles and clenches her fists in the wolf’s beautiful fur. He pants and looks up at Sam with curiously familiar green eyes.

“Nice doggy,” Tracy says, patting at the wolf’s head.

“Yeah, Tracy, this is a nice doggy,” Sam says, “Wonder if Grandpa Bobby knows there’s a wolf out here in his woods?”

The wolf cocks its head and seems to grin. The teeth exposed are huge and sharp, glistening in the moon-light. Sam stands up abruptly, scared into remembering he is in front of an unpredictable predator. The wolf steps back a few times and looks at him with such a human expression of longing and sadness that Sam has this intense urge to try and comfort him somehow. Then he turns abruptly and runs off into the deeper part of the forest.

“Bye-bye doggy?” Tracy asked.

“Yeah, Tracy. We said good-bye to the doggy,” Sam says. He scoops her up into his arms and hurries back along the path, holding his daughter close, heart pounding faster now that he realizes the danger they’d both been in. But the wolf had been so mesmerizing, so gentle and tame. It had seemed to know them, which was the weirdest thing of all.

He bursts back into Bobby’s steamy kitchen that now smells like delicious homemade spaghetti and meatballs. “Bobby, you could have told us there was a gigantic wolf out there!”

“Oh you met Fridolf, huh? Sorry, should have warned you.”

“He seemed friendly enough, but what’s the story with him? Is he someone’s pet?”

Bobby laughs. “Naw, he’s nobody’s but his own.”

Almost a month goes by, Sam settles in and sets about recuperating, slowly finding his footing. Bobby and Tracy bond over cookies and art projects. Sam had no idea Bobby would be such a perfect grandfather. When he hears Tracy call him Grandpa Bob-bee, he finally feels a weight lift off of his heart. The mistake of not telling Bobby what was happening with Jess is something he didn’t think he could get over, but thanks to Tracy and Bobby, he’s almost there.

Sam and Tracy keep taking walks before dinner in the woods, almost every night. They see the wolf, Fridolf, a few more times, but it’s not a regular thing. He does always feel something watching them, and he hopes it’s just the wolf. One evening, Sam finds a little cabin in the woods that he’d never noticed before; it looks well-kept, and maybe lived in, which seems strange way out there.

Sam decides when he gets back to Bobby’s that he needs to ask him about it, just in case there’s some unhinged survivalist gun nut living out in the woods. “I found a weird little cabin out there, in your woods. Looks like someone’s living there,” Sam says.

“I had no idea. Guess Rumsfeld isn’t doin’ his job. Great job, ya big dummy!” Bobby yells at the enormous dog asleep under the kitchen table.

“Has Rumsfeld ever met the wolf before?” Sam asks.

“Nah, I didn’t think that was a good idea for either of ‘em,” Bobby says.

“Yeah, Fridolf is better behaved than Rumsfeld,” Sam says with a laugh. He notices that Bobby doesn’t laugh, his mouth is a tight line like he’s holding back from saying something.

Bobby putters off into the kitchen and starts banging the dishes around so Sam gets the message he doesn’t want to be asked anything more. But Bobby answering like that makes Sam suspicious that there’s something else, something big that Bobby is leaving out.

The next evening after dinner, Sam takes a walk through the salvage yard after Tracy goes down for the night. He’s just walking, not thinking about anything in particular, which is a really nice change. It’s good to feel safe and a little more settled, it’s been too long since his life has made any sort of sense. That’s of course when his eagle eye happens to spot Bobby and another man talking at the edge of the woods. The man is far away, but something about the way he’s standing reminds Sam of his brother. He knows he’s probably just seeing what he wants to, not what’s really there. So to be sure, he creeps a little closer, and that’s when it hits him. That really is Dean. His long-lost brother is right there, standing not twenty feet away.

Bobby turns and walks back through the yard and into the house. And Dean stands there, looking straight at the clump of trees Sam is standing behind. He sniffs deeply a few times and smiles so widely Sam can see his teeth clearly. Before he can say anything, announce his presence, make contact, whatever, Dean’s turned and has disappeared back into the forest.

So that’s what Bobby’s been hiding, that’s who’s probably living in that cabin. But why? Sam stands there, frozen in the trees, as he realizes that his brother has been living that close, but hasn’t ever come to see him. It makes it all a million times worse. It brings all that heartache back up to the surface for Sam in a sudden flood that overwhelms him and tears him apart. He’s right back there at fifteen feeling the pain of losing Dean so abruptly right after he’d put his heart on the line. It’s overwhelming and it all suddenly turns to anger, before he realizes what he’s doing, he finds himself storming out to the cabin to confront Dean.

Dean’s standing there, like he’s waiting, just outside the cabin, torchlight inside the open door wavering behind him.

Sam stops a few feet away. “Is it really you?”

Dean smiles widely and nods. “Yeah, Sammy.”

Sam lurches forward, falling into his brother’s arms. Dean holds him, hugging him so tightly like he’s trying to make up for all the years he’s missed.

“You asshole!” Sam yells, swatting at Dean’s back as he breaks apart from the hug that’s made him feel whole again for the first time in more than ten years. “Why?” Sam feels like that one word says all of it: _Why did you leave me? Why did you stay away? Why are you here and hiding from me?_

“I didn’t want to screw up your life, Sam. Not back then, and not now.”

“Dean, it’s been screwed up since you left when I was fifteen. The only good thing at this point is my daughter.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean says, clenching and unclenching his hands.

“For what? Leaving me back then?” Sam asks.

“I didn’t…I didn’t leave you. That wasn’t my choice. You gotta believe me, Sam. That was all dad.”

“Oh sure. It didn’t have anything to do with what happened the night of my birthday. The week before you left,” Sam says, full of sarcasm he can’t manage to hide.

“Sam, I swear, that was absolutely not part of it. There was a reason that had nothing to do with you, or anything between you and me.”

“Well obviously there wasn’t anything between us, Dean. Otherwise, how could you have just left me like that? Without a word or anything.”

“You’d have to ask Dad about that. He didn’t let me stick around long enough to talk to you.”

“Dad’s dead, Dean. So I can’t ask him. I’m asking you,” Sam says, crossing his arms to protect himself from the non-answer he knows is coming.

Dean looks up at the treetops, avoiding Sam’s eyes. “Yeah, I know that, Sam. Who do you think helped Bobby burn him?”

“So? Are you going to answer me, or am I supposed to just give you a pass for avoiding me for the last ten years?”

“I will. I just need to work up to it. I want to tell you everything, Sammy, I do. Can you give me like a week?” Dean asks.

“Fine, sure, whatever, Dean. I’m not gonna hold my breath,” Sam says, turning to walk back through the woods to Bobby’s.

“Wait, Sammy. Can you come out here tomorrow with Tracy? I’d like to meet her if that’s okay with you.”

“How do you know about her?” Sam asks, suspicious that Dean knows his daughter’s name.

“Bobby, he uh…he told me about her. He’s been bragging about her all the time lately like he’s a grandpa or something.”

“Well, he kind of is. Yeah, sure, I’ll bring her out here tomorrow after lunch before her nap.”

“Bye, Sam.”

“See you tomorrow,” Sam says, walking off through the scrubby forest, shaking his head at his stupid reaction to finally seeing his brother. Stupid heart still wanting what it can’t have. He should have learned better by now. No matter what it is that Dean’s going to tell him in a week, it’s not going to change the facts.

As soon as Sam disappears from view, Dean wants to bang his head into the nearest tree. Why did he promise to tell Sam everything? He can’t, he promised Dad. But Dad’s gone, and Sam seems to need this. Not that he needs Dean, just the reason for all of it.

Dean swallows down the sudden fear of being this honest with the brother he’s missed more than breathing for these ten long years. Sam might as well be a stranger, but the older brother in him hasn’t shut up since he’d first seen Tracy or for that matter, Sam. It’s something more than a pull towards family, it’s that feeling of _mine_ that Dean hasn’t felt this strongly since he first held Sam as a baby.

The next afternoon Sam brings Tracy out to meet her uncle Dean. She goes over to him without protest, even eager which is strange. She and Dean seem to know each other already, as Dean holds her hoisted up high on his hip, Tracy’s hand never leaves the back of Dean’s neck and she keeps petting him and scratching behind his ears like he’s a dog or something. Sam tries to get her to stop but Dean puts him off, saying it’s okay. They seem to have one of those instantaneous, deep connections that is mysterious to the child’s parents. There’s just something about how they look at each other that moves Sam very deeply. He can’t remember ever seeing his brother this happy.

“She’s a great kid, Sammy. Really awesome…uh thanks, for letting her meet me,” Dean says. He sits down on the rustic wooden bench in front of the cabin, and scoots over enough so that Sam can sit too. Tracy is all over Dean, like she’s learning him with her hands and Dean looks like he wants to purr or wag a non-existent tail.

“Of course I’d let her meet you, Dean. I wish you’d been in her life since day one. She doesn’t have much family, you know?”

“I wish I’d been there, Sam. Especially when—Je…uh…her mother passed,” Dean says haltingly.

Sam can tell that Dean nearly said Jessica. “Bobby told you about Jessica too, huh? Do you know she burned on the ceiling, just like mom? Yeah, it would have been nice if you’d been there. I could have used you. I went a little crazy after that,” Sam admits.

“Anyone would have, Sammy. And believe me, if I could have been there for you, I would have,” Dean says.

“The more things like that you say, the less I think I want to hear this story you have to tell me,” Sam says.

“Well, if you don’t want to hear it, I ain’t tellin’ you,” Dean says, anger written all over his face. He almost looks like the hardened hunter he had been turning into when Sam last knew him.

“No, I’ll listen, I need to hear it. I just don’t know if it’ll be enough,” Sam says.

“Enough for what?” Dean asks.

“Enough of a reason to forgive you. And I want that, Dean. I want to be able to forgive you, so we can move past this, separation or whatever it was. So you can be in Tracy’s life…and uh…mine too,” Sam says.

Dean’s eyes sparkle when Sam says this. “I want that too, Sam.”

Before Sam can say anything else, Dean almost drops eye contact, but Sam can see his brother’s stubbornness makes him maintain that eye contact. The strength of the emotion in Dean’s eyes holds Sam there in front of him, holds him there so Dean can make sure Sam understands how much he means it.

Sam can feel his own eyes go all soft around the edges, and he smiles widely.

“Good,” Dean says, like it’s the best thing he’s heard in ages.

It’s almost Tracy’s nap time and she’s starting to get cranky, squirming and uncomfortable in Dean’s arms. Sam takes her from his brother and settles her on his hip. Dean hugs himself tightly as if he’s not sure what to do with his suddenly empty arms.

“I can walk back with you, maybe carry Tracy if you want?” Dean offers with a small, hopeful looking smile.

“No, but thanks. I think I need a little time alone with my thoughts after all this,” Sam says. “See you around, okay?” Sam hoists Tracy up a little higher on his hip and heads out the cabin door.

Dean gives him a little wave and steps back into his cabin, leaning against the doorframe to watch them walk away.

As he’s walking back to Bobby’s house, the weight of Tracy’s now sleeping body comforting and familiar, he feels a strange shiver of want pass through him at recalling how it felt to see Dean holding her. He wants that again, forever, all three of them together, like a real family. He shakes his head at himself, stupid heart wanting what it can’t have all over again.


	2. Full Wolf Moon

 

Sam finds himself outdoors again at the next full moon, out on Bobby’s back porch, drinking tea. He’s restless, can’t sleep, worrying about Dean out there in that little cabin with all this early snow. And there’s a wolf howling. It’s probably the cool one that he and Tracy had met before. But what if it’s not Fridolf? That thing was freaking huge. And Dean had seemed so unlike his old hunter self. Like he might not be prepared for anything and everything. What if Dean was in danger right now? He checks that Tracy is deeply asleep and slips out the back door, heading off into the woods with a large knife, pulling on his jacket, gloves and hat as he goes.

Sam stops when he hears the wolf howl again. Close. Very close. The eerie sound ricochets off the metal of all the shed buildings. Sam shivers at the sound and clenches his fist around the handle of the knife. He really hopes it’s the tame wolf from before. He breaks out into the clearing near Dean’s cabin and meets the wolf’s eyes. It’s standing on Dean’s doorstep. The green eyes glow and ensnare him, he walks towards the wolf, wishing he could stop himself and also wanting to throw his arms around it and never let go. Why would he think that? The thing could kill him.

“Hey, boy, hey. You leavin’ my brother alone?” Sam asks. He takes off one glove and holds that hand out for the wolf to sniff at like the world’s biggest labrador retriever.

The only answer he gets is the wolf licking his hand with a huge rough tongue. The shock of the wetness and soft tongue makes him gasp. The wolf looks up at him sharply, green eyes assessing.

“It’s okay, you just surprised me,” Sam says, scratching at the wolf’s head behind his ears. The wolf makes a harrumphing noise that reminds him so much of Dean it makes his head spin.

“So why are you hanging around here, boy?” Sam asks, sinking his hand into the deep fur ruff at the back of the wolf’s neck.

The wolf sits back on his haunches and tilts his head as if he’s considering. He thumps his head on the door of the cabin three times.

“Should we see if Dean is here? You know him, boy?” Sam asks, feeling silly calling the wolf boy, but what else should he call him? He probably doesn’t actually answer to Fridolf.

Sam raps his knuckles on the door several times but hears no one moving inside. He pushes the primitive door open and the wolf bounds inside, heading for the fireplace hearth. Sam pokes around, examining what his brother’s house looks like on the inside. It’s very neat and organized, and more spare than he’d pictured. There’s a small pallet, a camp stove, their old green cooler and a lantern. Dean’s been living like a hermit or a monk out here with no explanation for it. What the hell happened to him? And why won’t Bobby or Dean explain it to him? There must be a reason. And why does the wolf seem to know his way around Dean’s house so well?

He leaves Dean a note on the back of an ancient receipt from the nearby gas station, anchoring it under a big log on the hearth.

_Hey Dean, I heard a wolf howling so I came out to make sure you were okay. Met him on your doorstop and he said I could come in. ~ Sam_

Sam shoos the wolf outside and close the door firmly. As he walks back to Bobby’s house and his sleeping daughter he thinks about Dean holding her. What it would be like if Dean lived with them, how it would look if Dean fell asleep with her like he does himself sometimes. His heart does a strange flip at just the idea, like it’s readjusting itself to make room for something else he’ll never have.

It’s not until the next day when Sam and Tracy are blowing bubbles in the clearing after lunch that Sam realizes that he hasn’t seen both of them together. The wolf and his brother that is. It’s always been one or the other. He hears a terrifying howl from one side of the clearing and a more familiar growl from the other, and then before he knows what’s happening, Dean bursts from the direction of the familiar growl, transforming into the wolf they know as Fridolf as he leaps across the downed trees towards some movement. Something big is crashing through the brush and there’s a ferocious howl and a lot of thrashing and then there’s red blood arcing through the sky. Sam’s most of the way back to Bobby’s house with Tracy clutched tightly to him before he realizes that the sounds have all stopped. Either his brother is dead or whatever the thing that was coming for them is. Dean had saved them.

He tries to make light of it with Tracy, she’s worried about the doggy. But he doesn’t think she saw Dean turn into the wolf. But he did, he knows he did. And he can’t decide if he’s more worried about Dean or angry with Dean. This is obviously the thing he’s been stalling on telling him about. It’s a long evening of avoiding a conversation about this with Bobby and waiting for Tracy to fall asleep enough for him to make his way back out to Dean’s cabin.

He breathes several times when he sees the lights in Dean’s place, conscious of how relieved he is to know his brother is alive. He walks as loudly as he can so that Dean has some warning that he’s coming. Who knows, he might have super hearing or scent or whatever. He’s lifting his hand to knock on the rough wooden door when Dean opens it.

“Heya, Sammy,” Dean says, stepping back to let Sam come into the cabin.

Sam rolls his eyes and ducks through the low doorway. Dean points him to the pile of bedding on the floor, it’s the only place to sit, so he does. Dean paces back and forth in front of the fireplace, familiar bowed legs flickering in and out of the firelight.

Sam waits for Dean to say something, god anything at this point. Finally he huffs in frustration and decides to just ask. “So what are you, Dean? Werewolf, or skin changer, or what? And why did you think that it was okay for you to be around my daughter without telling me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sammy,” Dean says with an infuriating nonchalance. “You ought to keep your damn daughter safe.”

“Keep your damn wolf-self away from my daughter! I saw you change, Dean! So stop lying to me!”

“Fine, I’ll tell you. Just sit down wouldja? And stop yelling,” Dean says, handing Sam a beer from the cooler. He leans against the stones of the fireplace with his own beer and drinks half of it. Dean paces a little bit more and finally sits down next to his brother.

Dean clears his throat and looks out the window that’s all the way across the small room. “The week after your birthday, Dad and I were on that hunt, remember? And I was too slow, I got bitten. Yeah, obviously it was a werewolf. Dad sent me away when he realized it. He didn’t let me say goodbye to you, made me take off before we even came back to the town where you were waiting for us.”

“I don’t understand, Dean. Why would you just do that?”

“He threatened to kill me if I ever came near you again. He didn’t want you to know what I was because it would have messed your life up.”

“You were just nineteen, Dean.”

“Yeah, and you had just turned fifteen.”

“I didn’t know why you left or where you were. Dad wouldn’t say a thing about you, just that I wouldn’t ever see you again. That’s why I ended up living with Bobby, without you around to referee, Dad and I fought way too much.”

“I know. I was here,” Dean says, sipping at his beer.

  
“Wait, so you’ve been out here, the whole time? Living here in this cabin, right by Bobby’s? While I was growing up without my brother?”

“Yeah. I was keeping an eye on you. Bobby kept me supplied with the basics so I wouldn’t have to turn into an uncontrollable were. I patrolled for other were-creatures or other potential threats to you and Bobby. I stayed behind when you went to California.”

“What did you do while I was gone?” Sam asks, draining most of his beer bottle while he’s watching Dean .

Dean drinks the rest of his beer and sets the bottle down against the wall. “Well, I knew I finally had to try and live my own life, strange as it had become. I tried to integrate with the nearest werewolf pack over in the Black Hills forest, but since I don’t kill humans, and I’d been a loner for too many years…let’s just say it didn’t work out.”

“All this time I thought you’d left because I tried to kiss you, when you got me stoned that first time,” Sam says, heart in his throat just saying the words out loud.

Sam waits for Dean to say something, but his brother just sits there, eyes still as green as ever, wide and filled with some un-nameable emotion.

Sam feels the silence stretch between them. “I tried to forget, but I couldn’t,” Sam says, imagining that first kiss, after years of pining. Sam had tried to forget his obsession, but it never worked, he always dreamed of that kiss, imperfect as it had been. He remembered every detail. He wished he could tell Dean all of that, make him understand.

Dean still doesn’t say anything, so Sam starts to stand. There is no reason for him to stay any longer if Dean isn’t going to participate in the conversation.

The wolf in him hasn’t shut up since he’d first scented Tracy or for that matter, Sam. It’s something more than a pull towards human family, it’s that feeling of pack that Dean has never felt before but he’s always known he was missing. It’s the wolf that pushes him to finally speak.

“I remember, Sammy. That kiss was the only thing I did remember when I first turned,” Dean says, desperate to make it right between them, make Sam understand.

At this point, Dean realizes he could say something and put this off on Dad figuring out there was something between them and making him leave. But he can’t do that. He can’t lie about that part of it. That’s the only thing that he’s kept for himself from his former life. That one sweet kiss that a teenage Sam had given him had been the only memory he allowed himself to replay from his human life. The love he’d felt for Sam, that he still feels, is the strongest, deepest, purest feeling he has besides his wolf self. He can’t sully that with a lie, even though Sam would likely believe it. Because if their dad had ever suspected, he’d have at least separated them, and likely would have killed Dean.

Sam is still there, he hasn’t left, although it’s a near thing and Dean knows it. Dean moves closer to Sam and noses along the side of his cheek and behind his ear. “Sammy, you being so brave to kiss me like that, so sweet and perfect, the memory of it has kept me…me all this time.”

Suddenly the nearness of Sam, the scent of him, the heat of him overwhelms Dean with the pull towards pack and mate that he has never felt before. Maybe he’s been alone for so long that he’s lost some of the human inhibitions that would have stopped him before he became a were. It seems like the only choice left is to kiss Sam then instead of telling the lie that would let Sam walk back out of his life untethered.

When their lips meet, Dean feels the familiar surge of the wolf inside him, wanting to surface, to claim, to take, to have. He stuffs it down though, willing it away so that he can feel this on a human level. He owes that to Sam and to himself, he manages to think before Sam has them laid out flat on his bedding. Sam’s got him pinned and is biting and licking at his neck like he’s the one that’s the werewolf.

“Sammy, you gotta stop that. The neck thing, it makes me lose control of the wolf, it’s like an instinct or something.”

Sam chuckles against the skin of his neck, the vibration he feels through his body seems to coalesce in his groin. “I was kinda hoping that would happen.”

Dean growls deep in his throat, letting his wolf have its say. Sam’s face pops up into view and his eyes are both terrified and turned-on. “You’re not gonna turn, right?”

Dean flips him then because he’s not expecting it, and answers Sam with a sharp nip to his Adam’s apple. Sam squirms under him, grinding their hardnesses together in the most distracting way. Dean’s hips start up a rutting rhythm that is mostly instinct and he tries to stop himself.

“No, don’t stop, I like it like that,” Sam murmurs, he looks like he’s already been fucked, gone loose and pliant under Dean’s hands.

Just hearing that makes Dean groan with anticipation. He sits back on his heels and strips his shirt off and undoes his jeans, he wriggles out of them and throws them off towards the fire. Sam’s taking his clothes off, but Dean’s hands stop him. He slowly unbuttons Sam’s flannel shirt and pushes up the t-shirt underneath up into his armpits. Sam’s whole torso is bared to the firelight and it looks so edible, so tasty that he just has to lick it. His tongue finds one of Sam’s nipples and worries at it until Sam begins to squirm again, breathing hot and heavy against Dean’s arm. He switches over to the other one just to be fair and thorough and Sam loses it, writhing and moaning in pleasure.

Dean finally stops tormenting him, just long enough to strip Sam’s clothes off, slowly, piece by piece, touching and tasting every bit of skin that’s revealed. Sam is incoherent with pleasure now, he seems overwhelmed and Dean’s senses tell him that it’s now or never. He leaves the pile of blankets that is his bed for a moment, rustling around in his kitchen supplies for the small bottle of olive oil. When he comes back to the bed, he stops because he sees all of Sam, laid out for him. His beautiful brother lit only by the fire and by the heat and desire pouring off of him in pulsing waves that seem to be synced with the slow stroking of Sam’s hand on his hard cock.

“Sammy you look like a fuckin’ porn star right now,” Dean says, instantly regretting his words because his brother is so much more than that, beauty and grace and power all wrapped up in his perfect form.

Sam smiles though, big and open and so devastatingly sexy. “Come over here and I’ll show you.” He opens his legs up wide, making a space for Dean on the bed. Dean’s kneeling there between his brother’s legs, slicking him up with the olive oil, creating a space inside Sam that will only be his.

Dean enters Sam slowly, both of them moaning with the pleasure and pain of their joining. He rests for a moment once he’s finally all the way inside Sam, braced on his forearms over his brother. He softly kisses Sam in all his favorite places, thrilled that he already knows that somehow, his lips, his moles, behind his ears, under his neck. Sam starts moving underneath him in impatient little movements of his hips.

“So impatient,” Dean scolds, beginning to move with the motion of Sam’s hips.

“Shut up and fuck me, Dean,” Sam orders, grabbing both of Dean’s ass cheeks in his enormous hands and pulling him in deep and hard.

That makes Dean laugh. Sam is all of a sudden the bossy little brother he’s missed more than breathing, right here, and all his again. Finally all his. He growls with the thrill of that idea of possession and begins to fuck Sam as he requested, setting a pace that’s as exhilarating as a run through the forest under the full moon. He wants to howl with how damn good it feels, to finally be home where he belongs. Finally inside his mate.

Sam molds himself to Dean, holding on as best as he can, letting the power of Dean’s thrusts carry him over the cliff. He comes back to himself, now laid out flat on his stomach and Dean is biting the back of his neck so hard he feels there must be blood. Dean is growling and it’s not just Dean, the wolf is there with them and the wolf is inside Dean who’s inside him and he knows that he’s the wolf’s now, and he’s Dean’s at the same time and it’s all perfect, all the things he always wanted. And that’s all he knows until it all grays out into a comfortable haze where he’s floating. Dean is the only thing holding him to the world, tethered to this bed.

The last thing he hears is Dean whispering, “Mine. You’re mine now, Sammy.”

“Bobby, you in here?” Dean asks, knocking on the open kitchen door.

“Dean!” a small voice shrieks and comes closer along with the pounding of tiny feet. Dean’s legs are wrapped up in Tracy’s arms before he can move and he has to steady himself against the doorframe. He reaches down to hoist her up onto his hip and looks around the kitchen. The coffee is almost gone, and the breakfast dishes are in the sink.

“You idjits are really set on moving out to Whitefish this week, huh?” Bobby asks.

“Hey, Bobby. Mornin’, yeah, we are. Why, that a problem?”

“Naw, I’m just gonna miss that one,” Bobby says, clocking a finger at the squirming bundle of Tracy in Dean’s arms. Dean squeezes her tight until she protests, he lets her down to the floor and she runs over to Bobby and yanks on his shirt sleeve.

“Grandpa Bob-bee, want up.”

Bobby sighs and makes a big production out of lifting her up into his arms, but Dean sees the change come over the old man’s face. It’s like the sun has come out brighter and cheerier than is possible in the real world. “It’s not that far, Bobby. ’s not like California or somethin’, right? You can come visit us anytime.”

Bobby presses his face into Tracy’s unruly curls, Dean can hear him breathe in and out deeply. “Yeah, that’s true. At least I’ll know where y’all are.”

“Is Sam around?” Dean finally asks, because it seems strange that he’s not there with them at this time of day.

“He took my truck into town, something about transferring his law school credits to the University of Montana. I believe it’s down in Missoula.”

“That’s his plan. He thinks there’s a need for a lawyer that knows about hunters. Maybe he’s right, I don’t know. But hell, I’m not complaining. I couldn’t have moved to California with him, you know?”

“I know, Dean. It seems like a good compromise. But you have to promise me that you’ll baby proof that damn cabin of Rufus’, okay? I’m countin’ on you to keep my lil’ darlin’ here safe.”  Bobby jostles Tracy up and down so that she squeals with excitement and holds on tighter.

“Sure, sure, you got it,” Dean says, smiling at the sight of how happy they both are together.

“I got something for you, boy. That car of Sam’s, the one he showed up in. It’s not gonna make it even as far as Sturgis. So c’mon with me,” Bobby says, shoving out through the back door into the cold morning sunlight.

After they get Tracy bundled up and grab their jackets, Bobby leads Dean to the back of the salvage yard and pulls a tarp off of a vehicle. Dean gasps at the sight of the shining low-slung black beauty. His Dad’s car. He’d always coveted it, thought it would be his eventually, but then cars hadn’t been too important to him for ten years now. But this, Sam was going to flip over getting to have this.

“Bobby, it’s…it’s too much. I can’t take this,” Dean says, watching his own hand stroke the curve of the front fender like it remembered it all better than he did. He realizes he hasn’t thought about this car in a very long time, but it all floods back to him, their lives lived within the confines of this metal box. Flying through the backroads of the whole damn country, Dad blaring his rock music, Sam always curled up into his side.

“I don’t want you drivin’ my girl around in Sam’s clunker, so you’re takin’ it, end of story,” Bobby says with finality.

Dean nods and then grins widely at Bobby, still holding onto Tracy. “I bet she’ll love it, Sam will too. Want to see inside our new car, Tracy?”

“Boo-ful car, Dean, boo-ful.”

“Yeah, it is, baby, it always has been,” Dean says, sitting in the driver’s seat with Tracy on his lap. She puts her little fists around the steering wheel and tries to move it, making car noises with her lips. Dean laughs and adds some of his own. They’re making such a racket they don’t hear Sam’s approach but they do hear his booming laughter.

Sam bends down and asks through the open window, “You driving already, Tracy?”

“We go fast, Daddy,” Tracy says, grinning over the steering wheel at her father.

“Bobby’s trading us your car for this one,” Dean says. “But you’re driving her, I’m way too out of practice.”

Sam nods with a big smile at the idea of getting to drive his family in this car that’s always been theirs. He straightens up and looks over the hood at Bobby. “Man, I had no idea this car was still even around. Thanks, Bobby.”

“It doesn’t make up for keeping all of it from you all these years, but I hope it helps. I wish I’d never kept that promise I made to your Daddy.”

Sam crosses around the car to stand next to his adopted father. He slings one arm around him in a half-hug. “Bobby, I forgive you, of course I do. It meant everything to me that you stepped up when Dad couldn’t deal. And that you were the one that was proud of me for getting into Stanford. Now that I have a kid of my own, I get it, I do.”

Bobby looks up at him with relief. “You’ve always been one deep little bastard, Sam.”

“Daddy a bas-tud,” Tracy says solemnly, breaking the silence. All three of the grown-ups laugh because they know she’s going to end up being one of those kids that swears, no matter how much they try to watch their language around her.

When they take off in a fully packed Impala a few days later, Sam driving, and Dean in the front, Tracy strapped into her car seat in the back, Metallica playing on the tape deck, it’s like the past and present have merged into the most unexpected future they never imagined possible. Sam knows it’s not going to be easy commuting to law school and trying to figure out how to live together. Especially since one of them is a werewolf. But the years they missed out on sharing need to be made up somehow. And this seems like their chance.  
  
**_~The End~_ **


End file.
